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Kirk Mastin talks optimal editing workflow with Styles

NOTE: This article discusses an outdated version of Capture One. To learn more about our latest version, click here.

Hi everyone, It’s Kirk Mastin from Mastin Labs!  

As you may have heard, Mastin Labs is bringing our well-known film looks to Capture One – starting with the Kodak Everyday Style Pack. In this post, I’ll be sharing my optimal editing workflow for Capture One. 

Our Kodak Everyday Style Pack is ideal for tropical landscapes, road trips off the beaten path, authentic moments with your friends, and anywhere life takes you on your everyday journey. In our community, we’re seeing the Kodak Everyday Style Pack used for wedding, family and portrait photography. This style pack is one of the most versatile packs we’ve ever created. 

The Kodak Everyday Styles pack has three distinct looks, Kodak Ektar 100 is bright and vivid. This film was originally made for colorful lush landscapes. Kodak Gold 200 will give you instant feelings of nostalgia with the warm tones of this widely used film.  Kodak Tri-X 400 is a grittier black and white film with roots in photojournalism.  

Now that you are more familiar with this pack, let’s get started!  

Installing a Style Pack in Capture One is easy. Just double click on the Style Pack icon and it will self-install into Capture One. You may need to restart Capture One after installation for the new Style Pack to appear in your Styles panel. We’ve created an optional Mastin Labs workspace that you can install into Capture One that provides you with only the tools you need to get a consistently beautiful edit, organized in a logical and easy-to-follow layout. Now that you’ve installed the Style Pack and Mastin Labs workspace, you’re ready to edit your first image.  

Our styles work in an efficient system that will get you a film look in very few steps. In the styles section, you will see Film, White Balance, Tone, Lens Correction, and Grain. To get the best edit, just work your way down this list from top to bottom, adding what you like to get the look that you love.  

Film 

This is where you choose the film look for your image. In many cases, this is the only selection you need to get a beautiful edit. The following settings are meant to enhance this base film look. 

White Balance 

We’ve included several white balance settings that will get you in the ballpark of correct temperature and tint. Since the color of light can vary from environment to environment so much, these settings will not always provide you with a perfect color balance. 

Tone 

These settings mimic the highlight and shadow retention settings of the Fuji Frontier SP3000 film scanner from which these styles were emulated from. Highlight Soft, for example, will recover highlight detail without affecting the rest of the image. Highlight hard, on the other hand, will increase contrast in the highlights for a punchier look. The same applies to shadow controls such as Shadow Hard and Shadow Soft. These Tone settings are a great way to solve tricky lighting situations such as high contrast lighting, or to dial in a personal look. 

Lens Correction 

Many lenses, when shot at very wide apertures such as f1.8 and f2 exhibit strong vignetting. If the lens is a wide angle it will also have noticeable distortion. Lens Correction fixes these issues and gives you an image with even lighting across the frame and no distortion. This tool is not necessary for a film look, but I added it because it made matching my digital images to my medium format film images much easier. Many of the lenses I use for my medium format film cameras are better corrected than 35mm camera lenses, so by using lens correction, I can get a better match to what I am used to with medium format film. 

Grain 

The last optional step is to add film grain. Capture One has incredible grain simulation options and I really love simulating authentic–looking film grain for this style pack. Kodak Gold and Ektar do not have grain built into the base preset, as many users do not like grain at all. But if you do want to add the character of real film grain to your images, you have two choices: 35mm sized grain and medium format sized grain (which is based on a 645 ration medium format 120/220mm film size.)  

The Tri-X style has grain built in, as grain is a fundamental character of black and white film, and there it is attached to the style.  

Outside of these settings, the only tools you will need in Capture One are Exposure, Kelvin (temperature), and Tint. Since no film style can determine the amount or temperature of light you are shooting in, these settings must be set by the user, and usually involve a little tweaking to set correctly, just as you would in any edit. 

My editing process

A typical edit for me goes as follows: 

  1. Select Ektar as my film base.
  1. Adjust Exposure, Kelvin, and Tint as needed. (I may select a White Balance style as a starting point.)
  1. Add a tone profile to enhace my image or to fix a lighting issue.
  1. Select Lens Correction if I am going for a evenly lit, medium format look.
  1. Medium Format grain. (This is my personal favorite grain size.)
  1. Crop to 4X5 if the frame is vertical. (This goes back to my medium format film backgrounds and it’s a personal favorite aspect ratio for vertical shots.)
  1. Export edited image as JPG.

I really love the power and simplicity of Capture One and with our optional Mastin Labs workspace, you have just the tools you need and nothing more, making the editing experience fun and easy!  

Want more tips on editing your first image with Mastin Labs Capture One Styles? Watch this short video.

If you dont already have Capture One, you can download a free 30 day trial and try it out.

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Wedding workflow with Style!

When I shoot weddings, my main goal is happy customers. They are happy when I deliver the images to the high quality they expect, and when I deliver them fast, so they can relive their special day as soon as possible.  
To achieve this goal and meet the customer needs, I have set up what for me is an efficient, fast and reliable work flow – and that is what I would like to share with you in this post.

I’m a wedding photographer with a documentary touch. I shoot the venue, the people and the weather as is and I don’t photoshop any of my images. All editing, culling and processing happen exclusively using photo editing software Capture One Pro.
Let’s get started! 

Collecting images

When I’m out at the wedding my main goal is to back up my images on the go. Whenever I fill up a memory card I put it into an external hard drive with a card reader – so now the images are both on the memory card and on the hard drive. 

I only have quite small 32GB memory cards, so if a card is damaged I will only lose a small percentage of my images – I also use two cameras at any given time, so there is minimal risk of losing an entire slot during the wedding. 

When I return to my office I back up the images on my computer. Then I go to sleep, ready to look at the images the next day with fresh eyes. 

Import and Culling

Before I start culling and rating images, I import the images into a Session. I could also choose to import them into a Catalog, but I like the way the folders are created and I can create smart albums for each individual stage or “chapter” of the wedding, for example:

– Preparation

– Ceremony

– Reception

– Portraits

– Dinner

– Dance

This way, I easily have an overview and there is an advantage when it comes to editing – but we will get back to that.

I then import to the Capture Folder. I don’t use of the “Back up to” functions, because I have an automatic cloud backup which detects any changes in the chosen folders and backs them up immediately. But you can choose to back up to an external hard drive, NAS, second folder or wherever you like.

In Naming you can choose between different Tokens, which will help you name the files. I usually name the files using the following tokens: “Job Name” then insert an underscore to divide the Tokens and “Image Name” – so I have the name of both the job and the original filename.

You will be shown a Sample, so that you know that the naming is correct, before you import an entire wedding.

This is the Dialogue box when you choose “Import images”. Note that you also have the “Import To” section – that’s where the images will be saved. This can be on the computer’s hard drive, RAID drive or anywhere you want.

In the menu Metadata, you can fill out metadata information if you want to. I usually don’t, because it’s already set in my camera.  

You can also choose to make initial adjustments during import. I prefer to do it afterwards, but some photographers like to auto adjust the white balance, for example. 

Culling 

Now the images are imported, it’s time to find all the gold shots.  

I have quite a simple way of doing this. All the images that I want to edit are given a rating 1 – simply press 1 when you see an image that you want to take a closer look at.

In this way I save a lot of time, and I wait until I have edited the images before I make the final cut. Some images gain a lot after the right adjustments, so I only have one round of culling, and after edit I might cut some more images.

When the images are rated, I create a Smart Album, for example “Portraits”. I then drag all the images from the portrait session to the Smart Album. This will help me when I’m grading the different photos, because the look has to be consistent throughout the different “stages” or “chapters” of the day.

There is a Focus Mask option which shows you which elements are in focus in the selected image. I don’t use that option because I choose an image based on its mood and not whether it’s razor-sharp.
However, I do know a lot of photographers who use the Focus Mask, and therefore I feel its worth mentioning. 

The green area shows which elements of the image are in focus.

Initial editing 

After the rating process, I will go through all the rated images. My main focus is on: the right crop, straightening up the image, adjusting the white balance, exposure, brightness, contrast, vignette and clarity. At this point ,I don’t focus on the color grading the images.

There are a couple of particularly useful tools I would like to highlight. The first is the Brightness slider – and how I use it in combination with the exposure slider.

Let’s take a look at an example: 

In the image to the left Exposure has been added. In the image to the right Brightness has been added, and Exposure has been decreased slightly.

Notice the difference in highlights and shadows. I think that when you lower the exposure and increase the brightness, the mood of the scene is preserved. 
 
Things tend to move fast at weddings. Sometimes the settings in the camera don’t provide you with the perfect output and this will take some adjustments. For me, one of the biggest struggles has been recovering highlights and lightening shadows. Capture One has a very strong tool. The Highlight and Shadow recovery features are very subtle and are perfect to add that bit of sky or details in dark areas. 

The image on the left is straight out of camera. The one to the right is after using the Highlight Recovery Slider , details in the dress show up, while the white church and the skies are more visible.

Styles 

First of all, I love Styles! (Or what is known as ‘presets’ in other photo editing software) It’s an easy, fast and sufficient tool to quickly get the color grading your images deserve. 

No matter how good your camera is, how well composed your image is – there will (almost) always something to gain by color grading to get the right mood for your images.

There are a number of ways to achieve this:

– Manual colorgrading. Capture One has a very powerful and amazing color editor where you can grade every aspect of the image as you want.

– Styles as a “one click fits all” solution. You choose a Style and apply it as is.

– Styles as a quick reference to the final look. Apply the Style you want, and then customize it to your liking. Any adjustment applied by the Style is visible and can easily be altered. You can even save the new look, as a new Style so you also have that for future images.

The image on the left is straight out of camera. I have applied a Mastin Labs Style to the image on the right in order to give the image that warm summer vibe and analogue film feel.

Quick batch editing

When you have a lot of images that need editing, it would take too long to edit and color grade every single image individually. So I prefer to Copy Adjustments and Paste Adjustments from images in similar lighting. That waym I get a consistent look and a fast way to edit.  
 
You can either use the icons shown below or on a mac: Shift + CMD + C for copy and Shift + CMD + V to apply. On a windows computer use: Shift + CTRL + C for copy and Shift + CTRL + V to apply.

The arrow going up is for Copy Adjustments and the arrow going down is for Apply Adjustment.

After it’s all done, I go through the photos one last time to make sure that every image is to my liking and has the look I want.   

B/W 

I always deliver the images in both color and black/white. It’s easy and not particularly time consuming to make a beautiful black/white conversion and still keep the color images as well. 
 
You can make a clone of your image or a new variant. If you right click on the image and choose New Variant, it will take your original image without any adjustments and make a new variant so you know you can begin cropping, changing exposure or making a black/white conversion – either manually or, again, by using a Style. 
 
If you choose Clone Variant. Then you will see an exact copy – you can now go to your Styles. Remove the Style, but it will keep all other adjustments. Then apply an amazing black/white Style to compliment the look of your image. Using this method will keep the two versions, color and black/white, as close to each other as possible. 

Exporting images

My good colleague, Alexander Flemming, wrote a great blog post last year about his Wedding Workflow. When I read it I realized that my way of exporting images could be done more efficiently and I adopted his Exporting technique. The Following excerpt is from his blog post, which can be read in full here.

When I export images for digital delivery to a wedding couple, I want to make it easy for them to share the images with friends and family.

I also want them to be able to make large prints of the files. This requires two different sizes of each picture with different amounts of sharpening and different ICC profiles.  For convenience, I also want to split up the exported images into subfolders, just like I divided my RAW files in the beginning. 

Proces Recipes are pure genius, and here is the reason behind it:  

I can select my images in each Session Album, click “Process” (shortcut: ctrl/cmd + d), and Capture One now does all of this for me automatically.

How did I achieve this? By setting up my Process Recipes to my exact needs using Tokens.

The Process Recipes are found in the Process Recipe Tab. I have two I use for weddings; “Wedding Print” and “Wedding Resized”. Create a new recipe by clicking the plus-icon and name it what you want. Let’s go through the setup for both (I will ignore Metadata and Watermark for now): 

“Wedding Print” 

Basic 

I use 90 in Quality for wedding exports, which will slightly decrease the file size without affecting visual quality.
 

ICC Profile is Adobe RGB and images are exported to 100% of their original file size. Resolution is 300 dpi for print. 

File 

Root Folder is set to Output Location, which will match the tool below (Output Location). This should, by default, have ‘Output’ chosen as folder. This is the Output folder in your session.
You can always click the arrow to check. 

Sub Folder is set to ‘Print/[Collection Name]’ where ‘Print/’ is manually written and [Collection Name] is a Token from the Token list, similar to when we imported images. 

Adjustments

Here I add ‘Output Sharpening for Print’. Using the Recipe Proofing (glasses icon top right), you can see the effect of your sharpening amount of your selected recipe in the viewer. This way you can tweak it to your liking before doing any exports. 

To sum up the first recipe; ‘Wedding Print’ will create a full-size JPG file in Adobe RGB, add a little sharpening to it, put it into a folder matching the name of the Session Album it’s processed from, and that folder is put inside a parent folder called Print. 

Similarly, I want to create a resized version for sharing on social media or other fast applications.

“Wedding Resized” 

 

Basic 

I turn down Quality to 80 for this recipe to minimize file size without affecting quality. ICC Profile is now sRGB for web-based applications and Scale is set to 2000 pixels Long Edge. 

With today’s retina displays and high-resolution smart phones, anything less might look pixelated. 

File

The only difference from my Print recipe here, is that I change “Print” to “Resized” in the Sub Folder format. 

This creates a new parent folder for all resized images. 

Adjustments

Here I use Output Sharpening for Screen instead, giving me a simple setup for adding sharpening for my resized images.’ 

The amount of sharpening is subjective, and you should use recipe proofing to make sure you nail it. The image should look sharp and crispy without being overly sharpened. Too much sharpening kills images! 

Make sure you have only the two selected Wedding Process Recipes enabled now. 

When exporting using “Collection Name” as a Token, make sure you are in the correct Session Album when clicking ‘Process’.

Images can be in multiple Albums, and Capture One only knows the name of the collection you’re currently in. Therefore, go to ‘Preparations’ from the Library Tab, Filter by five stars, select all images and process using ctrl/cmd + d. Repeat for the four other Session Albums.

The result is all your exported images are put into a total of ten subfolders, distributed in two parent folders, both within the Session Output folder. Print files are full-size JPGs with ‘print sharpen’ and Resized are 2000 pixels long edge with “screen sharpen”. Like I said, pure genius. 

This is what the folder structure looks like.

 

Workspace

I don’t want to fiddle around in too many menus and fewer clicks saves time. In Capture One everything is build in modules, and you can drag and drop them anywhere you want. So I have made my own workspace where I have all my essential edits collected in one menu. 

This is my Wedding Workspace – notice that you can see my saved workspace in the Workspace tab.

I have saved this as a “Wedding Workspace”, because the tools I need for editing weddings are different than when I’m shooting tethered or editing portraits.

Final thoughts

This was an introduction to my preferred workflow when editing weddings. This workflow might change as I continue to find new ways to reach my final goal. The great thing about Capture One is that there are several ways to achieve your desired end result.  

I’m always for the lookout for new paths to a faster, sleeker and more sufficient workflow.

If you are curious here is a link to my favourite Styles from Mastin Labs. 

Try Capture One Pro for 30 days – if you don’t have it yet, download here.

We love to share our passion and knowledge with you. All of our Blogs, Webinars and Tutorials can be found here in our Learning Hub.

What’s your best tip for editing weddings? 

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mountains

Making the switch: How Andrew Ling went from Lightroom to Capture One

I always thought Capture One was a photo editing software for shooting tethered – but quickly learned that it offers so much more. Today, Capture One is my go-to tool for editing and my entire image creation workflow from start to finish.

close up of person working on laptop using capture one software

Learning how to use Capture One completely changed my workflow for the better – from the little things, like the efficiency of the engine-saving battery life when I’m working from my laptop. To major features like Styles and advanced color editing tools which help me achieve my exact unique look.

Capture One took my work to the next level and now I want to help you do the same.

Workspace

The first time I ever opened Capture One, I was initially intimidated by the layout. It wasn’t until later that I learned about the custom layouts available. I’d highly recommend anyone just making the switch over from Lightroom, to go up to Window (in the toolbar) -> Workspace -> Migration.

capture one screenshot

On Migration, it’s an immediate relief, to be met with a workspace similar to the one in Lightroom, with the photo browsers on the bottom of your screen, and essential editing tools to the right..

Favorite Features

I read about Emily Teague’s experience switching over to Capture One from Lightroom, and noted how much she loved the clarity and highlights adjustments. Both adjustments are gentle and give natural results, something I was very impressed with. You can see an example of these two adjustments on my photo from Patagonia in this image comparison.  Further, in the newest version – Capture One 20, the updated contrast controls gives you more precise edits than ever before.

patagonia landscape by andrew ling

Switching experiences

Switching my main photo editing software was a smooth process. One of my favorite features is the Resource Hub, which pops up when you launch Capture One and includes news, software updates and high-quality tutorials. All the tutorials are free and easy-to-follow.

person sitting at computer screen using capture one software

From the get go, I was excited to try all the new features I had been learning about. I started by importing one of my favorite photos to edit, and things felt natural almost immediately. The same key tools for adjusting exposure, highlights / shadows, contrast, etc were all in one place and easy to find.

I love the addition of the Basic Color Editor to Capture One 20 – I can edit colors fast just by clicking anywhere on the photo and dragging to adjust the hue, saturation and lightness of any color.

For more control, my absolute favorite feature is the Color Picker tool. It allows for complete customization of color and all features are powered instantaneously, with no lag. I have a very specific and distinct style for certain jobs and Capture One lets me achieve it with total precision.

close up of person using video workflow in capture one

When building my new workflow in Capture One, I focused on the tools I need and use the most and customized the interface around that. I have found the software amazingly quick to learn and am excited to see where Capture One continues to take my work.

I hope you’ll follow along on the journey to process the cleanest, sharpest images ever.

screenshot of software showing video workflow in capture one

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Making the switch: How Emily Teague went from Lightroom to Capture One

NOTE: This article uses images from an older version of Capture One. To learn more about our latest version, click here.

Despite owning Capture One thanks to winning a license at a workshop, I let it sit on my computer mostly untouched. The few times I opened the program I was intimidated by the new and advanced interface. I started to use it for tethering and playing around with some basic adjustments- that was it. At the end of a photoshoot I would then import the photos into Lightroom and continue editing on the program I had been using since I was 15 years old.

I told myself I would eventually learn how to use Capture One. Each shoot I had to edit I would pause and think, “I should be importing into Capture One and learning how to use it- but I don’t have time right now. I’ll do it next time”. It continued that way for over a year.

During my trip to India this past November I was really curious to see what I could do with my street photography in Capture One. There was no client, deadline, or expectation. I was free to play around.

switching to capture one

Once I decided to force myself to use Capture One, the learning curve really wasn’t as intimidating as I had assumed. It became fun to troubleshoot; to find where things were and learn how to accomplish what I needed. Anytime I had difficulty figuring something out, I went to the Learning Hub on Capture One’s website. The free tutorials and webinars helped me solve any issue I encountered in a very simple and straightforward way. It became my go-to resource.  

Within an hour of playing around, clicking anything I could, and using the Learning Hub- I felt that I could proficiently use Capture One. The moment I dedicated myself to learning the program, my intimidation was gone.

After figuring out how to use the program, I started editing a few photos to my liking and copy / pasting the settings to the rest of the images in the catalog. I then went into Lightroom and looked at some previous files I had edited the day before and compared the Capture One and Lightroom versions side by side. I was in love with how much the quality of the Capture One files had increased. The images were sharper without looking gritty, the color looked richer, and the highlights that I had taken down retained more detail.

switching to capture one

 

The Workspace

There are 8 workspaces to choose from depending on how you want the interface to look, and you can customize them all to your liking. One of the workspaces titled ‘Migration’ is especially helpful for people switching from Lightroom. It has a similar set-up where your images are displayed in the horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen and the tools are located on the right. For me, I got rid of several tools that weren’t necessary for my editing in order to simplify.

I organized the exposure tab for all my basic needs that will affect every image and also added white balance, vignetting, and styles (styles are similar to presets in Lightroom) to speed up my workflow. In addition, I’ve taken out and added tools within the toolbar at the top of the screen. You can add or remove spaces so everything is placed exactly where you want it.

 

The Adjustments

I’ve noticed that the adjustments in Capture One seem to be a lot softer with more gradual shifts which I love. The two biggest comparisons for me are the clarity and highlight recovery tools. In Lightroom, if you push the clarity slider your image starts to look over processed and gritty, but that’s not the case with the clarity and structure sliders in Capture One.

I also just adore the highlight recovery under the High Dynamic Range tool. I’m always impressed with how much detail can brought back- especially for my street portraits where I’m not in control of the light and my highlights are often getting blown out. This tool has saved me. In my old workflow with Lightroom, I would often drag the highlights down to -100 and still feel that it wasn’t enough or that my image was starting to look a bit lifeless, but I haven’t experienced that with Capture One. When I’ve tested it out, I get more recovery and find that it’s not bringing any of those negative effects.

Switching to capture one

 

My Favourite Things about the Transition

My favorite things about my transition to Capture One come down to a few things. First is the immediate difference I see in the color of my images when I first import into Capture One. Beyond that, the added tools that Lightroom doesn’t have, the incredible color editor which allows me to color grade entirely in Capture One, the luminosity masks, and the customizable radial and linear gradient masks are all extremely helpful. There’s also the customization of the workspace, the sleek design, and the overall quality improvement I’ve seen in my own images since making the switch.

Switching to capture one

 

Testing How Quick You Can Learn

For the past two months I’ve been subleasing an apartment in Brooklyn with fine art and portrait photographer, Brandi Nicole. When discussing Capture One she expressed to me that she felt the same intimidation that I originally experienced. She had been using Lightroom for 7 years and despite wanting to make the transition, she was hesitant because she was so accustomed to her workflow. I spoke with her about my own experience and we decided to test how quickly she could learn the program.

Within a couple hours of playing with images in Capture One and watching the introductory webinars on the Learning Hub, Brandi was able to go from never opening the program to becoming proficient. She found that most of the tools she had been using in both Lightroom and Photoshop were integrated into the program, offering a much more time efficient way to go through her workflow.

Switching to capture one

Here are a few of the questions I asked Brandi after she made her transition:

Why did you want to transition to Capture One?

“I had heard so much about tethering in Capture One being more robust, and that it offered advanced options to adjust colors, mask, and use layers within the program. These are also all the things I have had frustrations with in my workflow in Lightroom, so I figured it was time for an upgrade!”

 

What was your experience in getting started with Capture One?

“At first I was 100% intimidated; it seems as if there are infinite buttons, drop downs, and just tons to go through. After browsing the tabs and tools for even a couple minutes I found that most everything was very familiar. As a Lightroom user for many years, I found the Migration workspace to be very helpful to get to know the program.”

 

What is your best advice for other new users?

“I would say that in order to give it a fair shot, stick with it. It can be frustrating to learn your way around something new. I remember way back when I first was hesitant to use a Wacom tablet – that was a really difficult learning curve at the time, but now I can’t retouch without it. I am already certain it will be the same with Capture One.”

 

What was challenging and what helped with those challenges?

“The most challenging thing for me is re-learning shortcuts and the placement of the tools and options. But I already know that the customization, flexibility, and level of control in the tools will exponentially speed up my workflow. I use the Learning Hub and feel more confident and excited to go forward using Capture One in my workflow.”

In conclusion, I am really glad I put the small amount of time in to switch to Capture One.  It was much less intimidating than I had made it out to be and I’ve been in love with seeing how the quality in my images has increased.

If you don’t already have Capture One, you can download a 30-day trial and try it out.

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